A Durable Fire
by Deb3
Summary: There are many different kinds of fire.


Title: A Durable Fire  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Disclaimer: CSIM isn't mine. I have only borrowed those unfortunately fictional characters. There are many real characters here, though. Much of this story and the entire crime except the murder is based on actual events of this past week that happened to my mother. Names of the criminal and criminally negligent have been deleted to protect me (they aren't innocent) from a libel suit. I could take the defense of truth, but I don't want to devote the resources to trial. So nobody, real or imaginary, actually has a case here to sue me.  
  
Pairing: H/C.  
  
Sequel: To Honor.  
  
Fit the First: I am writing this while I'm mad, in fact furious. I have a long fuse, but this week has set it off with a vengeance. Writing is an excellent vent and helps me get a better grip on things. You've had some stuff I've written while mad but only a few. So if this seems a little sharper, or something-er, than most of my stories, you're right, it is. You'll understand by the end. Remember, delete the murder, and it really happened.  
  
Fit the Second: Not only am I mad about the callous irresponsibility of some people, but I am also mad at my computer at home, more specifically my mouse. Tonight, it chose to travel on to whatever destination dead computer mice eventually arrive at, neatly packaged by me for the trip in two pieces in my trash can. I will ceremonially burn its corpse on Monday along with the rest of my trash. For tonight, however, I have no mouse. The nearest purveyor of mice is 45 minutes away, one price of living in the middle of nowhere. I'll get a new one tomorrow. Navigating Windows and the Internet without a mouse is possible, but it isn't fun. Try it some time yourself.

Fit the Third: Due to this stupid fanfiction site for some reason not recognizing the asterisk as a scene divider today, I am switching for purposes of this site only to a new scene divider, H/C. Ignore these characters, except as an indication that the scene changes. Stupid computers!

Enough fits. Enjoy the story.

H/C

"But true love is a durable fire, In the mind ever burning, Never sick, never old, never dead, From itself never turning."  
  
Sir Walter Raleigh

H/C

She dreamed that her husband was alive again. His low murmurs of affection teased her hair as he tried to coax her to face him, to trap her into admitting that she was awake. It was a game they played, seeing how long she could ignore his attentions. It was never very long. His moist, warm kiss against the back of her neck sent a shiver down her spine, and he redoubled his efforts in triumph at her increasingly obvious response.  
  
Mary's eyelids twitched as the dream dissipated, and she squeezed them tightly shut, trying to recapture the final threads as they retreated through her mind. Wait a minute. The kiss at the back of her neck, the low murmurs remained, though the dream had fled. Landing with an unwilling thud back in full wakefulness, she rolled over to face the anxious German Shepherd who whined at the bedside. "What is it, Dreist? You don't need out." She glanced at the clock. "It's only 2:00. Go back to sleep." She closed her eyes and snuggled back down, and the dog clamped his powerful teeth gently around her pajama sleeve, dragging the arm out of the bed, dragging her along with it. She was barely in time to catch her balance and avoid falling on the floor. "What is it?" She sat and listened now. The house was still, at peace. In the distance, though, was a low snap. "Firecrackers. Those blasted kids again. It's past the 4th, too. Just firecrackers, Dreist. They can't come in." The dog looked back at her from the bedroom door and whined urgently, his eyes dark with worry. With a sigh, Mary stood and padded to the door in her bare feet. "Okay, boy, we'll walk around and check the place."  
  
Her half-reluctant tour of the house slammed to a horrified stop in the front room as her adrenaline level vaulted far past her dog's. The window framed a scene of orange, flickering disaster. The house across the street was on fire, blazing, the entire lower level consumed, the flames starting to show through the roof. The house next to it, separated by a scant 10 feet, was totally dark. Already, tongues of flame licked greedily at the gap as if they could taste the new fuel waiting just out of reach.  
  
Mary grabbed the phone urgently, dialing by feel. Across the street, a light snapped on in the darkened house, and a sleep-roughened voice replied. "Hello?"  
  
"Paulette, the house next door is on fire!" She slammed the receiver back down without waiting for a reply and picked it immediately back up again, her fumbling fingers tracing out another, shorter number. 911.

H/C

Paulette dressed on the way to the bedroom door, managing somehow to avoid falling over while doing it. She bolted down the hall, but her mind remained in the living room even after she had turned the corner, frozen on the tableau visible through the side window, the one that faced the house next door. A flickering, horribly familiar light danced through the glass into her house and played against the walls. Down the hall, her body stopped in front of the closed door and pounded urgently, opening it without even waiting for a response. She grabbed the sleeping teenager in the bed and hauled him upright almost roughly. Her urgency silenced his protest. "The house next door is on fire. Get dressed, then catch the cats and put them in the truck." He nodded, but she was already gone back up the hall and outside, still in bare feet and not noticing. Driven by a growing fury, she grabbed the neatly coiled water hose that was always there, ready to water the luxurious plants on the porch. Switching the faucet on full blast, she bolted around to the side of the house and challenged the flames. She knew that Mary would call 911, that help would be coming. She only had to hold it back a little while. The fire hesitated in the face of her determination and retreated a fraction to regather itself for a new and stronger assault. She stood there aiming her pitifully inadequate stream of water at the blaze, aiming all of her fury along with it. Two words repeated like a flickering flame chorus in her mind. Not again. Not again.  
  
Her mind abandoned her body, leaving it to the fight, and slipped over 25 years back into the past. She had been sound asleep when the hand, a definite, large hand, had grasped her shoulder firmly and shook her awake. She rolled back puzzled to face her waker, even half asleep realizing that it did not feel like one of the kids. No person was there, but a laughing, orange enemy was. The roof was on fire, flames starting to probe eagerly down into the rooms, with an ominous snap and crackle overhead. No time even to dress. She launched herself across the hall into the other front bedroom, scooped her daughter out of the small bed, and ran back to the door, setting her on her feet as she opened it. "Get out! Run to the end of the driveway and stand there." She gave her an urgent push, and the girl tottered out into the night. Paulette turned back and raced into the flaming house, no longer worried for that child. She might stop to look briefly, but she would obey. It was the thought of the boys, asleep in the back of the house, that sent frozen chills down her spine, in spite of the intense and growingly uncomfortable heat. Charging back to the bedroom, she yanked them out of the bunk beds, pushing the older one out of the room before he was even fully awake, tucking the younger one, squirming in protest, under her arm. They re-entered the hall, her oldest running in front of her but glancing back, too. "Go on," she shouted over the snap of the flames. A piece of flaming ceiling fell, and she hurdled it. Then, there was the welcoming cool air of the night as they erupted from the house. The ceiling collapsed when they were halfway down the driveway, sending up a roaring shower of sparks. Then, they were together again, she and her three children, standing at the end of the driveway in their pajamas, watching everything else they possessed go up in flames.  
  
Her mind snapped back to the present, and she gripped the hose tighter. It wasn't going to happen again. Nobody should have more than one fire in their lives. It just wasn't fair. Life isn't fair, her mind replied, one of her favorite sayings, but the anger rose up to challenge it. Fair or not, it wasn't going to happen. Not again. Just a little longer, and help would come.  
  
The welcome sirens sounded in the distance, growing nearer, and the fire truck turned into their block. Lights were on all up and down the street now. The firemen jumped out of the truck, immediately heading for the narrow gap between the houses. No other house was as close. There was a driveway on the other side of the burning building. The lead fireman raced up beside Paulette, pulling her gently back, and she and her garden hose willingly yielded to professionals. They had held the flames back, though, for the crucial few minutes. "Anyone in there?" the fireman shouted, leaning close to her to be heard. The fire was leaping and snapping at the sky like an enraged tiger.  
  
"No," she shouted back. "They were evicted."  
  
He nodded and pushed her back toward the front of her house. The other firemen were converging on the gap, trying to keep the fire from spreading. She walked back around to her truck where the cats prowled restlessly inside and her teenaged son leaned against the hood, watching the fire with almost clinical fascination. He had not survived one before. She had, and there was no fascination to it. She turned away. Between the fire and the swirling emergency lights, the whole street was lit by now. She gave a nod of thanks to Mary, who stood there in her front yard with her German Shepherd as always beside her knee. Mary nodded back, and one hand lightly brushed Dreist's head. "Good dog," she said softly, and his tail thumped against her leg, her praise all the reward he ever wanted. 

H/C

Side by side, Horatio and Calleigh walked from the street to the burned-out shell, their strides in perfect unison, his a bit shorter than it wanted to be, hers a bit longer. Alexx followed at a discrete distance. They paused tentatively on the porch, and the fire marshal emerged. "Is it safe?" Horatio asked.  
  
"For the moment. It'll have to come down, though."  
  
"Just as long as it's not in the next few minutes," Horatio replied. He glanced around the yard. All fires left a mess, but this charred junk had been here even before last night's destruction. "Were they trying to start a new branch of the city dump?"  
  
"Landlord's due in court today for charges from the health department. Apparently, the tenants just threw their trash out into the front yard. Hoped someone else's trash truck would take it, I guess. Of course, all the bags got chewed open, and the trash would blow all around the block. Health department has logged 63 separate complaints against this place in the last few months."  
  
"And the landlord didn't do anything?" Calleigh couldn't believe it.  
  
"He got the property in settlement of a debt, and he didn't want it. He was desperate to sell. Didn't really care about it at all. The court finally made him move, though. The tenants were evicted. They were supposed to clear out by noon yesterday."  
  
"Doesn't look like they took a lot with them," Alexx commented.  
  
"They didn't even take all of them with them," the marshal replied. "The DB's here in the front room. It's preliminary, but this looks like one of the tenants." They all ducked warily through the door and entered. The house crunched softly underfoot, like blackened snow.  
  
"Dead before the fire?"  
  
Alexx knelt beside the body. "I'll know more at post, but I think so. No marks of restraint, but it's hardly a natural position to sleep in." The charred corpse had her neck tucked down and her knees tucked up as far as they would go, which wasn't too far. "She was pregnant, Horatio."  
  
Calleigh glanced up, seeing his own fire light in his eyes. A pure, consuming, avenging fire, not destructive like this one, but cleansing. He was totally focused on the case, and she allowed herself one brief second to admire him before returning to her own task. "What is this under her feet? Plastic of some kind?"  
  
"Under the rest of her too, traces of it." Alexx rolled the body gently, revealing more of the material. "The body shielded it somewhat from the fire." Calleigh carefully took a sample.  
  
The fire marshal swept the charred room with his stare. "This is one of the most blatant cases of arson I've seen in a long time. The house was empty, and the power was shut off two days ago because they hadn't paid the bill."  
  
"Not electrical, then," Horatio agreed. "Some accelerant?"  
  
"Cans of gasoline and matches. He ran some kind of homemade fuse." The marshal indicated the distance, and Horatio measured it with his eyes.  
  
"Looks like about 13 feet 4 inches, but we'll measure it exactly."  
  
The marshal was impressed. "13 feet 4 ½. You're good, Caine."  
  
"You'd better believe it," Calleigh agreed, not quite silently enough. All three of the other living occupants of the room looked at her in amusement. She kept her head up, though, challenging the marshal to disagree with her, and he was the first to look away.  
  
Horatio returned to his measured distance, his voice still crinkling with amusement. "That'll tell us the time factor. We can match the materials, set up identical fuses, and time them." He gave an educated sniff. "I think they may have been running a home business." He forged on into another room, leaving Alexx with the body as the others followed him. "Smells like burned meth ingredients to me."  
  
The marshal nodded. "The lady next door thought they were dealing drugs. You ought to talk to her. The one across the street is a gold mine, too. That one's an old widow. Sits there all day making everyone's business her own."  
  
"Good thing, last night," Horatio said. He had read the report where she had called the fire in.  
  
"It sure was. This whole block could have gone. We just saved the house next door. The woman there was fighting the fire with a garden hose when the truck got here."  
  
Calleigh grinned to herself. If a fire was threatening her home, she'd fight it with a garden hose herself. After calling 911, of course.  
  
Horatio bumped her not quite casually on the shoulder. "Let's go see what we can prospect in these information gold mines, Cal."  
  
She carefully handed her samples of the plastic and the drugs to Alexx. "Would you turn these into Trace, Alexx?"  
  
"Sure. I'll call you after post, Horatio."  
  
"Thank you, Alexx. Calleigh will be with me." Horatio and Calleigh carefully picked their way back across the charred junk heap of the floor and out the door. The fire marshal followed.  
  
Behind them, Alexx shook her head. "I know that," she said to the empty room. "What I want to know is, what took you two so long?" She bent back over the body. 

H/C

Paulette sat back in her living room chair with her own fire of anger burning in her eyes. Looking at her, Calleigh could easily imagine this woman fighting a house fire with a garden hose. "Those people were driving me crazy. They were driving everyone crazy. They just threw their trash right out in the yard, and the wind would always blow it into mine. I'd pick it up I don't know how many times and dump it back on their porch, but they never even noticed. They just didn't care. Didn't care about anything. She'd had eight kids, and all of them were taken away by the DFS. She was pregnant with her ninth." A moment's sympathy for that innocent, unborn child silenced them.  
  
Calleigh broke the silence finally. "Her ninth?"  
  
"She had to stay pregnant, to keep her welfare check up. Since the state kept taking her kids, she just kept producing more. I think they dealt drugs, too."  
  
Horatio's attention sharpened. "What makes you think that?"  
  
"The oddest stream of traffic would come by there. Expensive cars, beat up cars, the whole range. They would stop and the people go in just for a minute, then they'd come back out and drive off. People would walk up, too. All types."  
  
Horatio nodded. "Tell me more about the people who lived there."  
  
"There was the woman, and a whole stream of men. I think she had about four boyfriends just in the four months she was there. They would play loud music and drink and throw their trash around. They had a whole series of dogs, too. They would chain them out in the trash with no food or water, and Mary and I would call Animal Control. Soon as Animal Control would take the dogs, they'd get another. We called the health department, too, over and over. The landlord never would have done anything if they hadn't finally set a court date."  
  
"So they had to be out by noon yesterday?" Calleigh asked.  
  
"Right, only they didn't clean up their mess. Just put a few things out in a car that came. It was a car I hadn't seen before, either. She didn't have a car, herself."  
  
"Can you describe it?" Horatio prepared his mind to take notes.  
  
"I can give you the license plate." Horatio and Calleigh looked at her in surprise. "It was a gold car, and it drove in across my yard. Just missed my little almond tree that I planted this spring. Parked in their front yard, on top of the trash, and there were several men going in and out. I went running out to check the almond tree, and the car was right there with the back plate facing me. For some reason, I came back in and wrote it down." She handed the Post-It note to Horatio.  
  
"How many men did you see?"  
  
She considered. "Three. Her current boyfriend and two others."  
  
"Did you see her leave the house?"  
  
"No. I didn't see the car drive off. I was in back. I did see the landlord – at least I think it was the landlord – come by later that evening. He was in a little white truck. He pulled slowly around and stopped, and he was just staring at the mess. I think he'd expected them to take more with them. Then, he spotted me looking at him through the window, and he quickly drove off. I just figured he was wondering how on earth he was going to get that mess cleaned up before the court hearing this afternoon." She caught her breath and looked back through the window. "Maybe he was trying to clean it up. That's one method, I guess."  
  
"That, or the tenants came back and set it just as a statement to the landlord for evicting them," Calleigh offered.  
  
"Or the tenants were trying to destroy evidence," Horatio suggested smoothly. "Evidence of drugs or murder or both."  
  
"It was arson, though?" Paulette asked.  
  
"No question of that," Horatio replied.  
  
The anger flames threatened to leap out of her eyes. "And I was right here with my son, 10 feet away, sleeping. How could anybody be that careless? Whatever the reason, this didn't just involve them. They could have burned down the whole block. They could have killed us. And they probably never even considered it."  
  
Horatio nodded, understanding the righteous anger, sharing it. "I'm sure they didn't." 

H/C

Alexx met them as they entered Trace. "Horatio, the post definitely shows that she was murdered before the fire. Strangled." She shook her head. "And that poor baby died along with her."  
  
"Thank you, Alexx. Speed, what have we got on that plastic?"  
  
Speed straightened up from the microscope. "Well, they didn't get mad. They got Glad."  
  
It took a second, a second Speed savored. He almost never fooled Horatio, even momentarily. The second was brief, though. "Trash bags."  
  
"Yep. They put the body in trash bags. Probably giant size. One up over the tucked up legs, another down over the head."  
  
Calleigh frowned. "But why would anybody . . ."  
  
The pieces snapped together in Horatio's mind. "Because the landlord had to clean the place up by the court date this afternoon. She was killed by the drug gang for some reason, probably a disagreement over payment for their moving services. But they expected the landlord to come with a truck and hired men and just clear all the trash out in a hurry. They thought the body would just go to the dump with the rest of it."  
  
Calleigh had no doubt he was right, but the men's reasoning still seemed off to her. "They expected the landlord to actually be able to clean out that place overnight? As bad as it was?"  
  
"I doubt any of them had much experience in cleaning," said Horatio. Everyone's eyes in the room reflexively settled on Speed as they thought it through, and he squirmed away from the attention after a second.  
  
"What're you all looking at me for? I don't live in a junk heap. I even take my trash out every . . . well, before it gets too bad."  
  
Alexx smiled at him, and Horatio and Calleigh smiled at each other. "No offense meant, Speed. Even you would have been put off by this place, from the sounds of it," Horatio said. He returned to the case. "So the landlord came later, and when he drove up and saw the mess, he knew he couldn't get it cleaned up in time. So he came back after everyone was asleep, and he fired the house."  
  
"And he never noticed the body," Calleigh said. She couldn't believe how blind men could be – except Horatio, of course.  
  
Horatio's eyes ignited again. "He never noticed a lot more than that. He could have killed several people last night." He turned briskly. "So, Calleigh, why don't we get Adele and go down to the courthouse to meet him? His trial is at 4:00. I think we can expand the scope of the court's questions. He'll probably crack wide open. This was a spur of the moment thing."  
  
"I'll bet he doesn't show." She joined him willingly, though.  
  
"He has to, to look innocent at all," Horatio replied. "Meanwhile, Speed, run this license plate." He handed over the Post-It note. "It should lead us straight to the murderers. I look forward to tell them the reason we have it. It's because they almost ran over a baby almond tree. They didn't notice that, either, but they'll have a long time to think about it." 

H/C

The sun was a flaming ball falling over the city behind them, shedding its rays behind, and the ceaseless rhythm of the ocean lapped soothingly not far from their blanket. Horatio and Calleigh sat in perfect silence, no communication necessary, letting the tension of the day and the case wash out of them. The landlord had shown up early but tense for the health department hearing. Horatio and Calleigh had shown up earlier. Under questioning along suggested lines, he cracked wide open, admitting that he had set the house on fire to get rid of the mess. He was so eager to acquit himself of the murder that he confessed to everything else, including proposed insurance fraud. Meanwhile, Speed had tracked down the license plate, and Tripp had gone with reinforcements to collect the car owner and his gang. Placed in separate rooms and told that the others were all dealing, they had cracked fairly quickly. The woman had been murdered because she had tried to pay them for the moving in cut drugs, mixed with other ingredients to pad it. Like all of them, she had been trying to increase her personal profits.  
  
Horatio sighed and lay back on the blanket, and Calleigh glanced at him before lying down next to him, her head on his shoulder. "Thinking about that child?"  
  
She heard the half smile in his voice. "You know me too well."  
  
"I beg to differ, Lieutenant. I keep finding out more about you all the time."  
  
"Just don't be disappointed in the results."  
  
"No danger." She rolled over to kiss him briefly, but he wasn't quite ready to let go of the case yet, and she settled back again, giving him time. Once, time had been her enemy, counted out by tedious second hands on clocks, but it was an expanding luxury that she suddenly treasured over the last few months.  
  
"That baby was the only real innocent one in this. Everybody else had lost it long ago." He propped himself up on one elbow to face her. "They had it once, though. I've often wondered, if I could eliminate just one element from the city, what would it be?"  
  
"Drugs?" she guessed.  
  
He hesitated. "Hard to pick just one, but that's right up there. So much destruction." His eyes darkened for a moment, and she knew he was thinking of Ray. She propped herself up, facing him fully, and put a hand on his arm. "It's like playing with fire, Calleigh. People don't see the risk until it has them."  
  
"At least they only destroyed themselves this time, other than the child. It could have been a lot worse."  
  
He nodded. "That whole street could have gone. Especially that one house. It was so close. And the landlord never even noticed the danger. Just thought he was going to clean up a mess." His eyes locked on hers urgently. "How can people be so blind, Calleigh? Their actions reach other peoples' lives every day, and they don't even notice. Or worse, they notice, but they don't care."  
  
She squeezed his arm. "Playing with fire, like you said. They don't see the destruction they could cause." She leaned across and put her hand across his lips, silencing his building reply. It was time to turn his mind away from the darkness to the light. He had lived too long with the darkness. So had she. "But Horatio, there are other kinds of fire, too. Like justice. Like you. Like us." She kissed him fully then, feeling his growing response, the heat rising between them. When they finally came up for air, his eyes were aflame, but this time, it wasn't with anger.  
  
"You're right," he said. "A durable fire, someone called it once. Love is a durable fire. Never burns out." He pushed away from her a bit, surprising her, though his words stayed close. "Calleigh, I don't want to play with fire anymore. These last few months have been wonderful, but I want more." He brought his hand out of his pocket and held the ring out to her. "I want the most beautiful, and caring, and passionate, and perfect woman in the world to share everything with me for the rest of my life. Including my name."  
  
She was struck speechless for a moment, but her hand was already reaching out, letting him slip the ring on, and her tongue finally caught up with her thoughts. "Horatio, I haven't wanted anything else for three years. Ever since I came to Miami. Oh, yes, Horatio. Forever, yes." She held the ring up, admiring it, and the last rays of the setting sun struck the diamond and danced within it. "Look, Horatio. A durable fire."  
  
He closed his hand over the ring, shutting off the light temporarily. "Yes. And tomorrow, Calleigh, it will reflect the sunrise, too. Every day, a new beginning. Every night, a perfect ending."  
  
Lost – and found – in love, Calleigh fell into his arms. Neither of them noticed when the sun slipped behind the buildings and the light died in the ring, temporarily. 


End file.
